Amazon Tops H-1B Approvals As USCIS Updates Employer Data

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services updated its H-1B Employer Data Hub through September 30, 2025, showing Amazon as the largest sponsor of foreign workers.

The H-1B Employer Data Hub, first launched in April 2019, provides quarterly updates on employers petitioning to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations, including data on approvals and denials. The portal now includes filings through the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025. USCIS collects the data from Form I-129 petitions and the first adjudicative decisions on initial and continuing employment.

The top 10 employers for 2025 approvals were:

Sometimes, different entities within the same corporate network will appear as separate companies. For example, “AMAZON COM SERVICES LLC”, “AMAZON WEB SERVICES”, and “AMAZON DEVELOPMENT CENTER” appear as different companies, even though they are related. The Dallas Express consolidated these entries for the purposes of making the above table.

The new employment data comes after Amazon confirmed layoffs for thousands of roles in white-collar positions, and The New York Times confirmed the authenticity of unexecuted plans to reduce its warehouse workforce, according to The Dallas Express.

The H-1B program allows U.S. companies to employ foreign professionals in specialty roles requiring at least a bachelor’s degree. President Donald Trump recently announced higher fees for new H-1B petitions. He proposed a weighted lottery system prioritizing higher-paid and more specialized workers, moving away from the traditional random lottery system. The public comment period for the proposed rule, under docket number USCIS-2025-0040, will run through November 24, 2025, DX reported.

The merits of the program and its effect on domestic wages are hotly debated. An AFL-CIO Department of Professional Employees 2025 fact sheet stated: “The H-1B visa program must be reformed so that employers can no longer use the program to lower industry standards, engage in outsourcing and offshoring, and pay H-1B workers below market wages.”

The union’s document indicated that in fiscal year 2019, “60 percent of H-1B positions were paid at the lowest two levels, meaning they were paid below the median wage for the occupation and location.”

However, the libertarian Cato Institute reported that “H-1B workers are highly paid: their wages are in the 90th percentile of all wages in the United States.” The think tank found that the median H-1B worker’s salary was around $108,000, “well over double the median wage for all U.S. workers.”

The updated H-1B data also highlights tensions between job cuts and foreign hiring. Texas Instruments recently announced layoffs in North Texas even as federal records show it applied for 263 H-1B positions between January 2024 and June 2025, DX reported.

Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) have reportedly questioned Amazon’s hiring practices, writing to CEO Andy Jassy that it is “hard to believe that Amazon cannot find qualified American tech workers to fill these positions,” after the company laid off hundreds of U.S. employees while hiring thousands of H-1B workers.

Public universities, such as the University of Texas at Dallas, have spent more than $1 million since 2020 sponsoring foreign employees, with approximately 300 beneficiaries approved, according to federal data. The filings ranged widely in salary and position, with a median salary in 2023 of $84,880, while over half of the positions in 2024 paid under $100,000.

Labor groups and policymakers remain divided on the program’s impact. Congress and the White House are actively considering reforms that could reshape the H-1B system in the coming years.